NOTE. PLEASE READ FIRST TO ANYONE READING Chris and I's discussion.
Chris I think understands and has a similar approach on this sort of discussion. My comments should not be taken as any heavy criticism of the story or complaint. I enjoy discussing the possible ramifications and all the various alternative outcomes that events can unfold into. I grew up in an era where fantasy in general and science fiction in particular was supposed to make you have all these side discussions.
I enjoy and accept Battletech for what it is/was. Though, if I ever have the time to get back into RPGs regularly, I would not mind finding a sort of updated Battletech with the scarcity nonsense removed.
Planetary defenses are not cheap - especially defenses capable of protecting a 360x360 area space around a planet. Even the Terran Hegemony's SDS grid was far from perfect and the sheer resources that were pushed into that were staggering, to put it mildly. Victor can barely support a hundred or so warships so far, he would need to put thousands of times comparable resources into building even minimal defenses around all his worlds, which even with the extremely generous assumptions this fic makes, is just impossible to achieve.
Cheap is relative. A planetary defense is basically a capital ship without jump engines or regular engines, just maneuvering thrusters. OR small asteroids towed into place and say hollowed out and then have weapons installed.
The real issue to put planetary defenses in place is developed the mobile shipyard to build them in place or tow them in place.
Mind you, as I said in the other thread, I think we are stretching into areas outside of the tone of Battletech because resources are cheap when you have access to space. Out own solar system literally has millions or billions more in terms of order of magnitude, of resources just floating in space, versus the max we would ever be able to get out of our planet. But Battletech was codified before we knew that.
When all you need is to drop a bioweapon into a biosphere, you don't need more than a jumpship and a suicide dropship if you want to be overt. An agent with fanatic loyalty if you want to be covert. Hell, even just a modified capital missile you can kick out an airlock that stays cold until a programmed point and then airbursts will do it.
I get what you are saying though I don't necessarily agree. We know from real world events that these sort of attacks are inhibited or prevented quite often and easily by our real world covert services. They don't publicize this stuff but if you read around over the years, you will find references to stuff like..."french commandos raid new terrorist training camps in northern Libyan desert" in the newspaper and if you are lucky you happen the catch the newsreport that French police intelligence (I don't recall the name for that unit, it has one, this thing I am paraphrasing from memory is for an event in the 1990s) recently wrapped up a serious investigating into a terror plot successfully...
I think deliver of bioweapons, in a nonmilitary context, ie not fired by missile from a ship that can make its own way to the place, and this extends to scifi and eventual real world space travel, is something that will be exceedingly difficult.
I also think species annihilator bioweapons are more of a scifi thing both in terms of development and deployment. I think parties who consider bioweapons are going to look at Coronavirus and see how, what is basically (though not scientifically) a new strain of the flu that is highly contagious and to which we have not yet developed natural immunity, is wrecking the world economy far more thoroughly that say dropped some super Ebola on a city and killing 100,000 people or even a million people would and begin to work their psychopathic minds in different directions
I mean for purposes of the the Kuritas could do as their retaliation for the death blow, dropping space coronavirus on like several hundred worlds and destroying the IS economy would be a far more effective revenge as it would open them up to attacks by the Clans and various weaker, but more predatory Periphery powers and pirates.
Again, Victors Warships simply cannot be on the front line AND protecting all his worlds against raids at the same time. Critical nodes perhaps, like the capitals and one or two key infrastructure worlds, but that's only a single digit percentage of the Federated Suns worlds.
Not yet. But Victor is basically at the beginning of an Honorverse like scale up in terms of space superiority and ship presence and volume. He keeps expanding both number of slips and variety of ship in construction. This is creating a huge workforce and supporting infrastructure. This is one of those things where say 5 to 10 years from now, he's going to be able to do both. And this industry will also support a vast increase in private space vessels as well.
Essentially Victor, under SI control, has executed the beginnings of a vast paradigm shift. I am not sure that the Star League as depicted had as strong a naval and civilian ship presense as the FS and the IS in general will have 25 years down the line as the ramifications of what Victor has begun flows.
I'm not saying its necessarily EASY or that everything would of course go according to plan, but if the Combine genuinely decided that this is the essential threat to their existence, so lets slaughter he Federated Suns first/at the same time... they could absoloutly do it. And as Victor has already pretty casually crossed several 'war crimes' by Inner Sphere standards (destroying jumpships, recharge stations and jumpship yards) its not even like Victor can claim he didn't define this as a 'to the knife' war at that point...
I am not sure that they could slaughter the whole of the FS. But I also point out that Victor is going to be faced with this over and over again so long as the DC exists, continues to rebuild and start war after war...and the alternative to not wiping them out is that they have more of a chance to create more superWMDS and hide them in dead solar systems..and have more of this sort of threat.
I mean, honestly Victor's best option.. if he does not want to risk the WMDs..
As part of the settlement, House Kurita and their immediate supporters also all have to commit seppuku. Basically create a political vacuum at the head of the DC, what remains of it.
We don't really see any hint of that in the Combine though, where the ISF and OP5 seem to be extremely competent at keeping the lower levels in line and following orders. Not saying it might not happen, but I think expecting a collapse is perhaps a reach, especially if the loyal Government remains in charge and control, with their hands on the information flows.
We have seen hints in this story though, as liberated worlds act mostly like liberated populations and mostly don't help the DC armies and ISF who try to go underground or become guerrilla fighters. Of course I could be cross referencing some of what happened with the CC on this issue.
As I said, they don't actually protect against a properly sealed and sterilized bio weapon that is going to be deployed. In fact the second link explicitly notes that its designed to detect a RELEASE of a weapon and sound the alarm - and even then its far from a perfect system with a LOT of environmental factors in play that make them more useful to reaction teams in full biochem gear to detect exactly what has been released on contaminated sensors more than detect it when its released. Its not a preemptive system, but a 'shit has hit the fan' system.
And really, its a 'make people feel safer' move more than anything, like fallout shelters. Logistically they don't stack up, but people THINK they are there so, feel good about it!
With that said, I'm not exactly sure where Battletech is with these systems in public spaces. Although I'd find it highly dubious that anything but critical infrastructure is covered.
But you would have to assume that their tech in this regard is at least somewhat more advanced than our own. And that they have like 1000 years of experiences (meaning not continuous but particular events) to use as a database in terms of how to deploy this stuff.
Building a 'WTF level' bioweapon is the single most incredibly hard type of weapon system you can think of. It requires incredibly specialized machines, training and knowledge orders of magnitude greater than fission or fusion weapons or making nasty chemical weapons with a very select skill set found generally these days only in the very top pharmaceutical companies. A major bioweapon is quite literally building a living organism robust enough to survive in the evolutionary tar pit that the human immune system is unable to take on, that can be spread WITHOUT killing its host too quickly and if at all possible, without the host having any symptoms to give it away while still being able to spread it. While also being stable enough to not mutate itself to death or away from what you want it to be.
Nuclear physics is kindergarten stuff in comparison.
This is all a very good thing of course as it means that generally only the very greatest of state powers can build, in any given generation, these kinds of weapons that are beyond our ability to fight. And while other states might be able to weaponize other things like say anthrax much more easily, so too can we easily counter them. As a rule, pretty much everyone in a nation state stays the ****** away from them because while a nuke is over quickly and chem weapons generally are too, but otherwise have a very limited area, bioweapons once unleashed are entirely up in the air as to if it wipes out mankind of not.
I am going to be vague here on purpose, only because I really don't want to even think that something I typed in a fan forum inspired a psychopath 20 years from now. But I think with the advent of several technologies, bioweapons are going to go from like you say, to easier than nukes. 3D printing is going to change every single type of manufacture, and that eventually includes bacteria.
In research now are 3d printers to literally print food and drugs. Printing bacteria is just one step above that.
Let's just say that if we live long enough (I am turning 47 this year), the whole host of potential new horrors that the wonders of science and engineering create as a side effect are going to be a terror to behold.
Irrelevant if the Combine simply want to kill hundreds of billions of Federated Suns citizens and ruin worlds. Simply load up a half dozen of their remaining warships with the goods and have them jump via deep space and uninhabited systems into the Crucis March and three or four months later, go on a killing spree without Victor able to do a damn thing about it.
Maybe. But as Victors naval capabilities increase and become more flexible if say he were to wipe out the DC, those would be something that could be countered to some extent. I mean, what is Victor supposed to do? Just as Minoru can use the WMD threat to stop Victor, he could also use it to say, if you don't protect us from the Clans, we will do the same thing. If you don't restore the prewar borders, we will do the same, if you don't surrender the entire FS to us, we will deploy the WMDs...
Victor has to have considered this and have plans in place to counter the WMDs as much as possible.
It would be an interesting story to read.
No, they can go now. Again, you don't need more than a couple of hundred jumpships and dropships and the fanatics to crew them, easily scraped up. Victor cannot protect his civilian population, its just not possible. And when you push a state to the level of 'we are going to destroy you', this is EXACTLY what that weapon existed for, explicitly.
He would have difficulty protecting his civilian population now, unless he has a secret plan in place already. But after the paradigm shift occurs? Once that huge space infrastructure begins growing on its own industrial capacity?
At this point the Combine has few easy options, no doubt. But in such a scenario if the Combine have made it abundantly clear they are going to go to extreme lengths? Do you want to risk it?
Its a calculated risk...how much damage could the DC do, if I went all in and wiped them out completely now, versus how much could they do in 10 years if I let them rearm?
I agree its not an easy choice.
There is in fact a Soviet/Russian school of thought called Nuclear deescalation. On the assumption that NATO launches a war against the Russians, the Russians conventional forces buckle and soon the NATO spearheads are streaming towards Moscow with little left to stop them.
Then - on Russian soil - the Russians would pick one of the NATO field armies and vaporize it with nukes while announcing that you either pull your forces back to pre-war lines and start peace talks, or, the Russians will nuke the rest of the NATO armies. With the thought that as a 'warning' shot to make everyone look over the ledge to the point you have pushed them, it'll make everyone stop and think very carefully. And that any nuclear retaliation (against the Russians for nuking their own country) will simply lead to a nuclear exchange as they have proven they are willing to even nuke their own lands. But you can take this as a warning to stop this before it goes too far.
It might still lead to a nuclear exchange, but the theory is at that point the Russians have little to loose anyway.
Interesting side story. One of my college teachers on the second stint, was an old Soviet defector who served in the military as a minor officer. He taught business math, which I took because i thought at the time of trying to get IT business degree, even though I was taking Calc 3 at the time trying to get a different degree. It was a confusing time...anyway. I would talk to him after class, because I was like "holy shit this guy must have lived through some cool shit".
At one point he described what was in the Soviet battle plans. One of the options if Nato were to make to actual Russian soul (remember the whole point of the USSR was basically to create a combination military buffer between Russia and its perceived enemies as well as a economic resource area that the Politiburo can use to prop Russia up at the expense of its communist partners/slave states), anyway, one of the actual options was to carpet bomb the armies, including the USSR's own just outside the Russia border to create a basically nuclear wasteland border that no following forces could pass.
The old Soviet mindset was pretty ruthless in the practical sense.
591774#msg1591774 date=1584771280]Oh, the DC is ****** in the long run, no worries there at all. But this is about the here and now, Victor IMO has pushed too far with his childish behavior showing off for the Sandovals.[/QUOTE]
As I said above, I think the DC can use this threat against Victor in the long run as well. Its a cost benefit analysis as to when the FS would have to take the hit. Unless Victor can basically convince, without it being known, the Bears and other clans to finish the DC off.
And of course that depends on what happens in that raid the DC is heading out on.
